


The Automaton Gravedigger

by anotherfirename



Category: Gregory Horror Show
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, POV Second Person, gender neutral reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2019-09-01 13:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16766365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherfirename/pseuds/anotherfirename
Summary: Writing about my OC who is an automaton gravedigger. Be careful she doesn't try to bury you as well.





	1. The Automaton

You find yourself in the graveyard, but like in a dream you don’t remember how you got here or why you even left Gregory House in the first place. In the distance through the fog you hear a steady rhythm of a shovel striking dirt, and without knowing why you start to move towards the sound. The sound grows louder and louder until you find a lone figure standing in the fog. Your first reaction is fear, for you quickly learned to be careful around even the seemingly harmless residents. Except this one doesn’t even seem to have noticed you yet. You’re not yet sure if that makes them any safer.

This one looks like a woman, or like they could have been one once. She reminds you of a marionette with a visible seam at every joint all the way down to her fingers. And her joints click and clack with every motion as she continues to dig and dig. The open graves surrounding her, organized in tidy even rows, make her job clear though there are no bodies to fill them in sight. Strangely, she wears a nightgown that used to be white but is now scuffed and caked with dirt. And though she is barefoot she doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered or slowed by it. Her long dark hair, darker still in the night, has been bundled into a messy bun that has long since started to come undone.

“Ah,” she says when she finally notices you. “I don’t usually get visitors.”'

Her voice is quiet and low with a sleepy slow cadence to it. She drives her shovel into the ground and comes closer to get a better look at you. You recoil when she turns to face you properly and allows you to see her whole face. Or what remains of it, at least. The right half of her head has been cracked and broken open, revealing a complicated array of constantly turning gears inside of what passes for her skull. Her right eye sits wide and unblinking without its socket, and you don’t like how it twitches every time it moves to look at you.

“There are always graves to dig,” she continues, either unaware of or uncaring of your discomfort. “I bury them and they dig themselves right back up, so I dig new graves and bury them again. At least it’s job security.”

With that said she picks up her shovel and returns to digging. Your presence seems to be forgotten, and when you gather the courage to ask if she might know a way home she doesn’t seem to notice.

“There you are, my friend,” a far too familiar voice calls out from behind you.

You turn and see Gregory walking towards you with a lantern in one hand. The lantern cuts through the fog and the darkness, but even this doesn’t allow you to see where the rows upon rows of empty graves end.

“It’s dangerous to be out here on your own, my friend,” Gregory continues, and though you’re tempted to you don’t point out the fact that it’s not exactly safe inside either. “Come inside. You don’t want to be out here for long.”

Your gaze drifts back to the woman who seems oblivious to the conversation. Her shovel keeps time like a metronome as she digs herself deeper and deeper. Six feet under, or so the saying goes.

“Oh her?” Gregory says, following your gaze. “Don’t worry about her, the poor thing. She’s been digging graves and burying bodies for so long it’s all she knows how to do now. But she does come in handy, our little automaton.”

Though his words are almost sympathetic his laugh is certainly not. Out of impulse and frustration you snatch the lantern out of his hand before taking off running towards where you think Gregory House is. Maybe you’ll get lost, but at this point you don’t care as you follow the halo of light cast ahead of you. You doubt Gregory would let you go that easily anyways.

Speaking of the rat, you can hear him calling to you though he gets more and more distant as he struggles to keep up. Then a sudden startled cry followed by a thud alerts you to the fact that he won’t be catching up anytime soon. You wonder if the automaton will bury him too.


	2. A Close Encounter

Once more you decide to brave the graveyard surrounding Gregory House in an attempt to find a way out. Once more you tell yourself that maybe if you just walk back down the path you came from you will eventually find your way home. Once more you find yourself wandering aimlessly through the fog as you pass row upon row of identical gravestones.

“Hey you!” calls a voice you don’t recognize.

You turn in place, searching for the source of the voice, but you can’t even see a silhouette in the fog.

“Down here!” the voice calls again.

This time you look down at your feet and jump back in surprise. There is a person in the ground, wedged up to his armpits with dirt, but he looks surprisingly unbothered by this fact. Did he climb out of the ground or sink into it? You fear the former, for he is little more than a skeleton composed of dull white bones stained by his time buried in his grave. His eyes are somehow still intact though, and they sit sunken in wide sockets as they stare at you with a hungry intensity.

“Listen,” he says, his voice rough and dry like spent kindling. “I have a bit of a problem here and I think you can help me out. This body is falling apart! I can’t go on like this!”

He indicates his skeletal arm covered by the tattered remains of an old shirt. His arm doesn’t sit in its socket quite right and it rattles as he waves it around to make his point. Then he plants both hands on the ground and pushes himself out of the dirt. To your dismay the rest of his body is no less dead. Briefly you wonder how he can even move, but your time in this world has taught you not to ask too many questions.

“Help me out,” he says as he struggles to rise. “I just need your help.”

Every time he tries to stand he collapses with a clatter into a pile of bones. Tentatively you reach for his hand and he reaches back.

“That,” he continues, and your instincts scream at you to run, “and your body.”

You try to run too late and he grabs your ankle, his grip like a vice and strong enough to pull you to the ground.

“Hold still!” he shouts as he claws his way up your leg. “This won’t hurt long. Then you won’t feel anything at all.”

You kick at his arm with your free leg but to no avail. He doesn’t even flinch, and it occurs to you that he might not have anything left to feel with. You begin to wonder if he will drag you into his grave or if he will simply hollow you out right here and now.

Then suddenly there is a tremendous thump as something strikes your assailant in the back of head. He goes limp and you scramble free. You look up at your rescuer and scramble back more when her unblinking eye swivels to look at you. The automaton graveyard digger, the woman with joints like a marionette and gears in her cracked open head, rests her shovel over one shoulder. Her eye swivels away and she stoops to grab your attacker by the leg. Slowly but steadily she drags him away into the fog, the clicking and clacking of her joints fading into the distance.

Even though it’s no safer inside you scramble to your feet and flee back to Gregory House. You don’t know what else is lurking in the graveyard, and you’re not about to stay and find out.


	3. Hide and Seek

Somewhere along the way this turned into an unwilling game of hide and seek, and what should be an innocent distraction feels more like a trap. Except when James said that there will be a punishment if he finds you, you decided not to take any chances.

“Come out come out!” James calls as he peers around a gravestone. “Awww. I thought for sure they’d be here…”

You watch him from behind another gravestone, careful not to make a sound as you press against the freezing stone. Briefly you consider heading back. As much as you don’t trust Gregory you know that he won’t stand for his grandson’s antics. It would be a form of respite no matter how brief.

“Okay!” James shouts. “I give up! You win!”

He stands in place and waits for you to reveal yourself, but you know better. You hold breath and stay where you are.

“That’s not fair!” James yells when he quickly runs out of patience. “I’m supposed to find you!”

He stomps his feet with childish petulance, and when he finishes his tantrum he returns to searching. You stay hidden as the sound of his feet crunching in the dirt grows more and more distant. As soon as you think it’s safe to move you turn and run in the opposite direction. Perhaps changing hiding places isn’t quite in the spirit of things, but if he’s going to play dirty then so are you.

Except in the darkness and the fog it’s hard to see where you’re going. It feels like the ground drops out from under your feet when you pitch forwards into an open grave. The grave is blessedly empty save for yourself, but the noise of your graceless fall was so loud that you can hear James giggling as he draws closer once more.

“I hear you,” he calls out in a sing song voice. “Come on out.”

You hold your breath and press against the side of the grave, hoping that the shadows will be enough to hide you. His footsteps grow louder and louder until they almost drown out your thundering heart. You stay where you are, still and silent, until you hear his disappointed “Awww” followed by retreating footsteps. Once you can no longer hear James you decide to risk taking a peek, but then a face obscures your view so suddenly you barely stifle a scream.

It’s the automaton gravedigger. She watches you with an unnerving intensity you’ve never seen in her before. Though you can see the literal gears in her head turning you are no closer to knowing what she’s thinking. You don’t know if this is better or worse than James finding you, not yet. You’re not even sure how you didn’t hear her coming between her footsteps and the click of her joints. Was she stalking you too?

You open your mouth to cry out, to beg her not to bury you alive, but to your surprise she flips her shovel around and offers you the handle. When you grab it she effortlessly pulls you out of the grave.

“You’re not dead yet,” she says before you can thank her. “Go finish what you started.”

She gestures with her shovel back down the path towards Gregory House and then appears to lose interest in you. She flips her shovel back around and returns to her work. You get the sense that you’re not welcome here anymore, if you were ever welcome here in the first place. You just hope you won’t run into James on the way back.


	4. Memories

You didn’t think the TV Fish ever left Gregory House for you’d only seen them haunting the basement and halls. Except now they swarm the grounds, casting harsh shadows with their ethereal glow. The automaton gravedigger is here as well. You've come to recognize her trail of freshly dug graves, and while she pays you little mind her presence keeps the Dead Bodies away. It's still risky of course. You're not sure if or when she will turn on you, but for now you seem safe as long as you keep your distance and don't disturb her work. 

You lean against the gravestones to rest whenever she stops to dig another grave. In a place of eternal darkness the passage of time is marked only by the rhythm of her shovel in the dirt. Peace is rare in Gregory House. You've learned to savour it when you can. When the gravedigger moves on to the next patch of untouched soil you get up and move with her. She will not look back at you. It's unlikely that she will look back at all. 

One by one the TV Fish gather and their screens start to flicker. They fill with static, the images too disrupted and distorted to make out. This is not new for you. You already knew that your memories are too faded and forgotten to create a strong enough signal. But to your surprise some of the static shifts and starts to clear. You stand up, but you quickly realize that these aren't your memories. All you can make out through the static is dirt and a shovel. 

These are her memories, you realize. These are the memories of the automaton gravedigger. 

You look around at the TV Fish and realize that all the screens show variations of the same thing. She digs. In summer, in winter, in day, in night. She digs. 

You look away from the screens and at the digger herself. These are memories from a past life and a different world. You only know this because there is a distinct passage of days and seasons among the flickering images. Here you're still not convinced about the existence of time. There is no night or day it seems, only an eternal darkness wrapped in fog. 

Even when her memories surround her the automaton gravedigger doesn't seem to notice, and she certainly doesn't seem to care. All she does is dig, forming a mirror of what she left behind. 

You wonder if she notices the TV Fish at all. You wonder if it would make a difference. 

You stand up and walk back towards Gregory House. The TV Fish have dogged you enough, and you don't need the frustration of more half-formed memories on top of everything else. The automaton gravedigger can have the past. It doesn't seem to matter to her one way or another.


End file.
